Wow, about 30 of you have got back to me with the things you want to achieve by 25th November 2012 (if the world hasn't, as widely expected, ended by then). If anyone else wants to join in I will keep the scheme open for a week and list you at the end of each entry. Thanks for all the messages of support and it is genuinely gratifying and humbling to know that this blog has been inspirational or helpful to even a few of you. I will not give out people's full names just in case they would prefer anonymity. Sorry if you wanted the glory of being named, but some of them seem a bit personal and I like that about them. I will reveal your names in two years time if you so wish. Do let me know if you achieve your goal, but I will email you all to find out how you're getting on. A lot of them are from writers, but they don't have to be. It can be anything you like, big or small!
KB "My goal is to write a play and get it performed in a London theatre within two years...the play will be set in the urinals of a London Pub."
P D-S "Aims for 2012? To get off my arse and get writing. Lots of ideas buzzing around my head but no get up and go to do anything about it. Perhaps a daily blog is the way forward....."
E G "I'm a screenwriter and have had one abysmal feature film made. By 25th Nov 2012 I will have another feature produced but this one won't want to make me cry."
R B "No real comedy value in this one, but in two years' time I would just like to be better at my job, and to have written some songs for the first time in years. Actually, I would also like to be less convinced that I am going to die alone. Or nearly alone - I might have a cat."
P C "Having read your blog today, it has inspired me to make good on a long standing ambition: to learn to play the ukelele, and then to be able to play and sing the 90s R'n'B standard 'No Diggity' by Blackstreet on it. I will let you know how I got on in two years....
I am 36 years old."
A G " I own my own scuba diving business and it's hard in the recession but I also know I feel the same mix of stressing about wasting time whilst also seeming to spend all my time working. So my goal is to focus on putting together packages that bring in more profit and make my life easier by being more organised. Also I'd like to have applied for course director, the top of the diving instructor tree! Most of all I'd like to remember to take more enjoyment out of it, that's why I got into it in the first place..."
J W "The 25th November 2012 will be my very last day of my twenties, which will no doubt serve as a pretty big milestone for myself. I have been thinking a lot recently about what I would like to achieve by the time I hit thirty.
I have always been passionate about film, cinema, story telling and anything visual. When I left university in 2004 I always thought I'd become some sort of film maker, regardless of success, but eventually someone would see something I'd made and like it and offer me more work. Things obviously didn't work out like that and I ended up in a crappy job that just about pays the bills like so many other people.
Anyway, my goal, before you blog is ten and I turn thirty is to make a feature length film (about god knows what) and show it somewhere (probably my house) to as many people as possible."
E T "I am a life-long procrastinator, better known amongst my increasingly diminishing circle of friends for pointless, misanthropic and unnecessarily stentorian declarations of distaste for things such as Michael McIntyre roadshows, Dan Brown books or the continuing presence of the Stereophonics in the world at large. Like some kind of rubbish Morrissey or Stewart Lee. Along with wishing to silence my (not-so) inner idiotic nincomboob, I would like to have finished and be proud of one of the many short stories I have started in the past five years. I'd also like it to be funny. Actually, scrap the pride part, I'd just like to have finished one. Hopefully one that is longer (and less bleak) than Hemingway's six word short story. Actually, scrap the funny part too."
B P "To have started a PhD in Russian History."
N H "My goal for the next two years is to earn my private pilots license. My girlfriend is buying me a trial lesson for Christmas. Then all I need to do is find the remaining £7k+ and the time every other weekend to schlep all the way from Hackney to Maidenhead."
D S "My goal is to be able to read and speak Japanese like a native. I am cheating because I have already started learning and I live in Tokyo." Not cheating by the way. After all I am not starting from scratch on the sit-com thing.
C "To find someone (romantically) who acts like themselves right from the word go. To fleece* as much money from this repugnant government as possible in the time allowed.Um, not much else to aim for except to be an awesome parent, which I will be anyway, obviously. I seem to be quite complete otherwise :) *I will actually need to, babies plus Uni equals expensive."
R B "I am, and have been for some time, a lawyer, which I've never had any desire to be. To the outside world I seem to be doing well but inside fires have died, embers are fading and the little voice that once yelled at me for betraying my heart's true intent has grown so fed up of not being listened to that it has stopped bothering to speak at all (can't say I blame it really). So, as of 1 January I'm quitting work to focus on listening to it very hard indeed. Which is all very well as backstory but none of that represents a very coherent goal, so I'll go for:"By 25 November 2012 I want to have begun a new career and had my first novel published""
The Rev P O (who could that be?) "To have finally got the genealogy from Matthew right. Why do there have to be so many names beginning with A?" He is trying to match my trick of learning page one of the NT. If you believe in God enough then surely he will just magic it into your head?
S T "I want to have done an Ironman triathlon in under 10 hours 30 minutes. I know there's nothing remotely entertaining about this one, sorry. But I will have to do a fuckload of training so it's not like I'm not going to have to do something to achieve this. For reference I was the chap who said your podcasts weren't long enough because I was spending longer that 1.06.36 on my bike.
also I want all my hair to grow back so I'm not a big baldie twat: come on science"
G "Hopefully I will have started running, I used to go every day, but I stopped a few years back and have always meant to start again, your clean living non-drinking ways may inspire me to get back on the streets. I think my non running may have coincided with my 'going down the pub' a lot more phase, I can't but help think the two are interlinked!
Alternatively I have several dvd box sets of Dexter to watch- maybe my goal should just be to watch those from the safety of my sofa.
Even more realistically I could just catch up with your pod casts, Edinburgh caught me out, one a week is enough for me! I had to listen to the mystical pod cast 123 twice and I still have no idea what happened! At present I'm listening to live ones from London."
V P "By 25th November 2012 I want to be studying for my Masters in Abnormal Psychology, or at the very least be pre-enrolled to start in 2013."
A N "By then I aim to attend one of your gigs, sit in the front row and not be the fattest nerd in the audience... I have no problem with the nerd part."
J M "By the 25th of November 2012 I was hoping to have some urban bee hives and be a fully fledged beekeeper, it is also - the olympics, the end of the world, my 10 year wedding anniversary, the end of my firm shoving their 5 year "IT Transformation program" program down our throats, hurrah!"
M A "...is to put my finger on what I feel is a big creative urge inside waiting to get out - and then do something about it!"
L C "Two years is a challenging timescale, which makes the question very interesting. I think I can comfortably forecast one year out (because I can see what's likely to be possible) or five years (because it feels so far away that it's easy to pick any goal without feeling accountable for it). And my Nobel Prize won't be coming for at least fifteen years (and my Chortle award, never). So I'm going to aim for: working on projects in ten different countries. Oh, and just to make it a bit more challenging, being invited to speak at TED."
C W "I'd quite like to gain the ability to identify constellations. My uncle, Uncle Phil, used to take me out stargazing now and again when I was a child and I could identify quite a few, I recall. Tragically I've forgotten them now. I fondly remember him taking me to a lecture by Patrick Moore at Cardiff University (I must have been about 10 or 12 years old or so at the time), where he battled through crowds of nerds in order to get Patrick to sign an autograph for me. I still have it, in an edition of Patrick Moore's "The Sun". It reads "To C W, Best Wishes, Patrick Moore." Not the most thrilling of comments but genuinely felt, I thought. Then the usual teenage nonsense got in the way and I lost my interest in the field and just drifted away. I've often felt a bit of a git for not rewarding Uncle Phil's enthusiasm, so very recently I've decided to do something about it.
I've done a bit of nagging over the past couple of months and have managed to wangle a telescope as a Christmas gift, plus a couple of astronomy books. Phil, as he's now calling himself since I've gotten all big and old, informs me that if I spot a new comet I can have the thing named after myself - that'll be a bit of a long shot though, but I reckon that I'll be able to point out at least 25 constellations by 25 November 2010."
A A "By 25th November 2012 I want to have finished my Ph.D thesis. It's about the representation of political torture in post-9/11 literature and film, and it is very bleak and difficult. However, like most writing, it is ultimately very rewarding. I have one full chapter written (out of five), which isn't a very high proportion of the work, but the rest is planned in enough detail for my goal to be achievable. By 25/11/2012 my funding will just have run out so hopefully I will have finished writing.
I won't yet be a doctor but most of the work will be done. I'll have to leave all of the doctor doctor jokes until probably sometime in 2013 (when I have to pass my viva and be crowned Doctor), although if the cuts are as bad as they seem, I'll never get a job with my useless academic qualification anyway and the title I'll have worked my twat off for will be reduced to a gimmicky way to fail to impress women."
A K "My goal is to read some good books. It doesn't sound like a lot but I find this impossible as a full-time parent running my own business. I totally took my own free time for granted before having a baby."
J M "My goal for 25th November 2010 is to have become a semi-professional comedian (i,e, get paid for a gig). Thanks to your blog I decided to go to Edinburgh in 2009 where I started doing stand-up. I've been living in the UK for the past few months now, doing all the gigs I can. So, yeah. Your blog has made a massive difference to me, I would never have dared coming here and starting stand-up, without your stories about gigs, the processes of writing and performing and your honesty about the brilliant and not-so-brilliant parts of working as a comedian."
S "To have kept up a blog about being a teacher working in an inner city state school after 15 years in independent schools. (It will start in April 2011). Please don't use my name as I don't want to get sacked before I even start!"
M R "I feel I have the potential to do something creative, in my case, writing but just need the impetus to give it a go. I'm fairly certain I could make a decent go at writing for a living but I lack the motivation. Anyway, I do seem to be making more of an effort this year so hopefully by 2012, I'll be making some money from writing and will have finished the book I have started. I've wanted to be a writer for quite a few years now and would hate to get to a position in life where I regret never even having tried, even if it does all come to nought."
K M "My goal is that, within 2 years, I've sold at least one spec script to a legitimate Hollywood production company and I'm in a position to be getting offered decent assignments. Hold me to it."
S "The serious thing I would like to happen by then is to have a baby as I am 32 and my ovaries are obviously withering as I type. However, that is probably a bit maudlin and not exactly in the spirit of your quest for goals, so I will settle for changing the light bulb in the porch (has been dead since we moved in 6 1/2 years ago). "
S C "My goal for 25th November 2012 is nothing more than to have my own garden in this urban jungle. Size isn't important, just somewhere with grass to walk on barefoot in the summer and little areas where I can grow things throughout the year. I'm no wannabe Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, but as an adult I've always lived in a flat or maisonette where I've looked over other people's gardens and not had my own. As a child I didn't have one either, having parents that thought concrete was the best thing you could plant in a garden!
So that's my goal: a little oasis of green that belongs to me."
And this aptly, just in as I was collating this
D Y "I plan to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestians. I think with a few bacon sandwiches and a few beers I could get these guys together. I feel it is important to set the bar high."
So some realistic, some unrealistic, but all rather beautiful in their own way. Success of failure is not the issue here either. The important thing is to try. But would be excellent if D Y is successful. And I really love the bee keeping one. But thanks so much for participating to all of you and do join in if you wish (but keep em short if you can).
So I suppose I should write something myself too or I am not sure that this counts as a blog!
A somewhat down-hearted Andrew Collings came round this morning to record
Podcast 141, but we worked through our issues (my financial indiscretions and the unfortunate death of his friend) in the podcast. We don't talk unless we are being recorded any more, so you get to hear everything. Our computer equipment once more rebelled against us, this time as we were being somewhat indiscreet about the recent events surrounding comedian Jason Manford. It may sound to you like we have edited something out, but I promise you it was the computer's decision to fade us out and then stop us. It may have been affected by some fridge magnets of a perverted Jesus that we had been sent. It would only be apt.
Whilst I didn't make any progress on my own 2012 goal (there's fucking ages to go. I will do it all on the 24th November 2012 as usual) I did get down to the Caffe Nero by the gym for the third day in a row. And incredibly this time I managed to actually summon the energy to also then go to the gym. These first steps are important.
